First of all, this is somewhat newsworthy. It's not as if there are many openly gay people in the NBA, either as executives or as players. In fact, he's the only one I can think of besides the retired Amechi. So, given it's uniqueness, and the fact that this is a continuing discussion in the area of civil rights / civil acceptance / and sociology at both a societal and sub-cultural level, yes, it is newsworthy.
No, I don't thinke he's being an attention whore. He's always been a consumate professional within the NBA. Trying to be an example to other people who are where you used to be is a positive. I would say it's not that different from a minority CEO going and giving talks at schools like the ones he or she grew up in.
As far as "he's waving it in our faces", well, I wave my heterosexual nature around all the time. I talk about my wife and kids all the time. I take them to events, whether company sponsored or just in public. I discuss our past with people. I am not trying to hide who I am. I don't think it is fair in the slightest for Welts to spend his whole life not being seen in public, or not sitting at games with his partner, or pointedly avoiding mentioning his partner to anyone in any conversations. Being open about your partner in the same way I am open about having a wife and kids is not "waving it around".
As for the "gay guys are coming for me" stuff... no they're not. Firstly, being raped by a gay guy is pretty rare outside of prison. Secondly, most gay men I know are pretty careful about hitting on people whose sexual orientation they are unsure of. Straight guys make tons of VERY unsuccessful passes on women who couldn't be less interested, but most people are willing to accept "that's just part of life" rather than labeling all hetero men as uncontrollable rapist sexual savages, or even saying a lot of them are. It is very much the exception rather than the rule.
As far as "gay people aren't suffering like black people," true, there wasn't Jim Crow or slavery. However, given the small number gays compared with the much larger number of black people in the US, gays suffer a disproportionate number of hate crimes (i.e.a gay person is several times more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than a black person).
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2009/victims.htmlThe numbers for members of the transgender community are way worse, but are not broken out from the FBI statistics.
http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/ntds_full.pdfBased on these statistics, I think it clearly illustrates the need for public awareness of the issue. So even if Rick Welts was "waving it around", it's probably a public benefit anyway.
Besides the she-men hanging out on Van Buren, when was the last time you were legitimately a "target" of a gay man?
